September 18, 2008

Film showing documents works by Cleveland artist, Case Western Reserve's Christopher Pekoc

Documentary to accompany national tour of work by artist Christopher Pekoc

The Baker-Nord Center for the Humanities at Case Western Reserve University will present a film by Cleveland videographer Tom Ball entitled, "The Beauty of Damage: A Film on the Art of Christopher Pekoc." As part of the Baker-Nord Center's work in progress series, the free, public program will be held Wednesday, September 24, at 6 p.m., in the lecture room at the Cleveland Museum of Art.

The film will accompany an upcoming national traveling exhibition of Pekoc's work. A nationally renowned artist, Pekoc is a lecturer for Case Western Reserve's art studio program. His work has been described as "beautiful and unsettling" by poet Dana Gioia. Henry Adams, professor of American art at Case Western Reserve, refers to Pekoc's art studio as "Frankenstein's laboratory, where corpses are sewn together into strange half-human creatures."

The showing of the 18-minute film will be followed by an open discussion with Pekoc, animator Bernie Sokolowski and Adams, who served as the film's co-producer and co-scriptwriter. The discussion will cover the fluid process of creating a movie, from inception through the various stages of fundraising, scriptwriting, research, filming, soundtrack composing and editing.

Case Western Reserve University is committed to the free exchange of ideas, reasoned debate and intellectual dialogue. Speakers and scholars with a diversity of opinions and perspectives are invited to the campus to provide the community with important points of view, some of which may be deemed controversial. The views and opinions of those invited to speak on the campus do not necessarily reflect the views of the university administration or any other segment of the university community.